New Affirmative Action StudyBy Gail HeriotAfter the passage of Proposition 209, many argued that even highly qualified minority students had ceased to apply, because they felt "unwelcome" at the University of California. This argument was used to justify a massive increase in the UC's spending on outreach (as well as to show that Proposition 209 was a bad idea in the first place). If this new study is correct, it may have been a false alarm. The study finds that the number of highly qualified minority students who chose to send their SAT scores to the UC did not drop off following the adoption of color blind admissions policies. As Gilda Radner might have put it, "Never mind...."